Alt Goes Mainstream: The Latest on Alternative Investments, WealthTech, & Private Markets

Monthly Alts Pulse Ep. 10: Taking the pulse of private markets with Lawrence Calcano, Chairman & CEO of iCapital, and Robert Picard, Managing Director, Head of Alternative Investments at Hightower Advisors

May 28, 2024

Lawrence Calcano, CEO of iCapital, and Robert Picard, Hightower Advisors MD, discuss operational challenges in private markets. They explore technology's impact on private markets, investment opportunities like community banks and AI, and the influence of private credit on economic development. The conversation emphasizes the importance of caution and diligence in navigating private market investments.

21:36

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Episode guests

Robert Picard

Lawrence Calcano

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Private markets offer potential for improved risk-adjusted returns for individual investors through increased access and allocation strategies.

Enhancing investor experience with technology in private markets is crucial for attracting more capital and streamlining investment processes.

Deep dives

Expanding Access to Private Markets

Private markets present a significant opportunity for individual investors, as historically, billionaires and university endowments have allocated over 50% to private markets, contrasting with individual investors who typically allocate less than 5%. By bridging this gap and providing access to private market solutions, there is a potential for improved risk-adjusted returns for individual investors. High Tower aims to complement traditional public equity and fixed income investments with private market offerings, encouraging a more diversified investment approach.

Introduction

3min

Empowering Advisors and Clients in Private Markets

12min

Exploring Investment Opportunities in Private Markets and Technological Transformation

2min

Exploring the Influence of Private Markets on Economic Development

2min

Navigating the Currents of Private Markets with Caution and Diligence

3min

Welcome to the 10th episode of a collaboration between iCapital x Alt Goes Mainstream.

Here’s the latest episode of the Monthly Alts Pulse, a live conversation in studio with Lawrence Calcano, the Chairman & CEO of iCapital, who as the leader of a platform that is responsible for the majority of individual and advisor-led investment flows into the alts space, has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in private markets.

In today’s episode, Lawrence and I welcome a special guest. Hightower Advisors Managing Director, Head of Alternative Investments Robert Picard joins us to discuss the operational challenges and solutions in private markets.

Robert has spearheaded the creation of the Alternative Investment Platform offering at Hightower, where he and the team curates investment opportunities in private markets for their advisor teams through research and due diligence. Hightower has 140 advisor teams that collectively manage over $150B AUM. Robert has a wealth of experience in private markets. He was instrumental in building four multi-billion dollar alternative investment platforms at The Carlyle Group / Rock Creek, Optima Fund Management, RBC Capital markets, and State Street / InfraHedge. Most recently, Robert served as Head of Alternative Investments at First Republic Wealth Management.

On this episode, Lawrence, Robert, and I had a fascinating and lively discussion. We covered a number of topics, including:

How wealth platforms like Hightower and infrastructure operating systems like iCapital are creating straight-through-processing solutions across the lifecycle of a private markets investment for the wealth channel.
The importance of bringing alts directly to the advisor’s desktop.
Why improving the experience for advisors in private markets is critical to increasing adoption.
Why it’s important to build across the continuum of needs for different types of high-net-worth investors.
The importance of customization and differentiation with private markets solutions for advisors.
What is the biggest unlock to enabling greater flows of capital into private markets?
What are the implications of opening up the alts superhighway?

Thanks Lawrence and Robert for a great episode … looking forward to next month’s conversation!

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